


Let Gravity Win

by SaltCore



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22429555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: Hanzo's not sure he can survive another choice between bad and worse.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 26
Kudos: 465





	Let Gravity Win

**Author's Note:**

> A very late request fill for [CorvidFightClub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvidFightClub).
> 
> Thanks to [Mirdala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirdala) for all the help!

The messages came less than a day after Jesse vanished.

They interrupted Hanzo’s call to Overwatch, cutting short his halting admission that he couldn’t find Jesse. He had stared down open-mouthed the screen; what he saw was an impossibility. Hanzo had called _dozens_ of times but gotten no answer, and hours of searching had left Hanzo with nothing to show but a pit of dread in his stomach. Now suddenly Jesse's ID was on his screen. He didn't know what he should feel. He wasn't even sure what he _did_ feel. 

That dread certainly, but also disbelief and anger and relief, all forming a kind of emotional static that left him numb as he opened the first message.

That numbness didn’t last long.

The first was a simple picture of the two of them—a candid shot from behind, Hanzo’s arm wrapped damningly around Jesse's waist. Jesse had not sent this—Hanzo knew that in his bones—and that fact turned the casual intimacy of the image into something sinister. It was a taunt. Someone wanted him to know that _they_ knew what Jesse is to him.

The second was a video. The thumbnail alone would have been enough to fuel Hanzo’s already vivid nightmares for months, but he made himself watch it in its entirety. The image of blood on brass knuckles will haunt him, but what truly stuck, after watching it, was the wet, muted sound of metal crashing into cheek that the microphone somehow picked up. Metal on meat was already the soundtrack to Hanzo’s personal hell. Looping in Jesse was just twisting the knife.

The third was simply an address.

Hanzo took only as much time as necessary to apprise Overwatch of the details, then he went. He knows if he had stopped to check, he would have orders to wait for their backup. He also knows Jesse does not have time to waste. Not when it’s Hanzo’s family that’s taken him.

He’s walking into a trap, that much is obvious. Not one laid carefully, but baited as it is, it really needn’t be. Hanzo doesn’t care. Jesse’s life is the only thing that matters.

Two men are smoking near the rear entrance to the building, and two men die without a sound. Hanzo creeps inside, keeping to the shadows. He can hear raucous conversation. Sloppy. He’d have kept his men quiet. Hanzo follows the sound until he comes to a door, left open just a crack.

His heart is in his throat as he peers inside. In that moment he realizes there’s no guarantee Jesse is here—or even that he’s alive. His fingers tighten around his bow and he draws an arrow. There could be an army waiting for him, but if they’ve killed Jesse, Hanzo will slaughter them all.

It takes all of Hanzo’s discipline to be still when he sees Jesse sitting in the center of the room. He makes himself take in every livid bruise, the painfully awkward way he’s holding himself, the gag between his teeth, the rope holding his hands at the small of his back. He memorizes all the things he has to repay. None of that has wiped the scowl from Jesse’s face, and something about his anger is perversely relieving. They haven’t broken him.

It’s only then that Hanzo takes note of the men guarding him, the ones milling about, loud and idle. One in particular has brass knuckles on his fingers and Jesse’s gun tucked into his waistband.

He dies first.

Hanzo slips through the door then looses the arrow, watching with no small satisfaction as it finds its home in Brass Knuckles’ neck. His hands fly uselessly to his throat before he crumples, gagging on carbon fiber and his own blood. His colleagues search the shadows, but it’s Jesse that spots him first.

“ _Run!_ ” Jesse screams, clear enough despite the gag, but Hanzo will do no such thing. He draws another arrow and lines up a shot, dropping a second man by puncturing his heart. A third arrow is just instants from finding its mark when Hanzo hears a voice that makes his blood run cold.

“Nephew.”

Hanzo knows that voice—Shimada Kazuo. His father’s youngest brother was waiting, just out of sight and flanked by more of his men. His arms are folded behind his back, away from the two swords in his belt, as if he has nothing at all to fear. Hanzo’s eyes catch on the scar running down Kazuo’s cheek, proof of Hanzo’s failure to kill him six years ago. A mistake he won’t repeat. Hanzo turns his arrow toward him instead.

“Put that toy away. You’ve already failed with it once before,” Kazuo sneers.

Hanzo hesitates, weighing the wisdom of killing Kazuo where he stands with so many of his men here. Kazuo arches one eyebrow. Just at the edge of Hanzo’s vision, someone moves and then Jesse makes a small, pained noise. Stormbow clatters to the ground before Hanzo has even fully processed the sound, and one of Kazuo’s lackeys darts forward and scoops it up. It galls Hanzo to allow it, but he does.

“Very attached to him, aren’t you?” Kazuo smiles then, like a wolf who’s finally cornered his prey. “How convenient. I had been worried I’d gone to all this trouble for nothing.”

In that moment, Hanzo’s hate is a physical thing—a pressure that makes his blood hammer in his head and his teeth clench. Bile and vinegar fill his mouth, leaving no room for a response. Kazuo helped convince him to kill Genji. Now he has hurt Jesse. Death is too good for him, but Hanzo will deliver it bare handed if he must.

“Nothing to say?” Kazuo sounds almost conversational.

Hanzo swallows down his anger, making room for speech.

“Not to you. Not until you let him go. He has no part in this.”

“Bold words coming from such a disgrace.” Kazuo says as he starts to circle Hanzo. “Besides, I very much think he does.”

Hanzo’s heart skips a beat. Life as an extraneous son had embittered Kazuo, and his constantly thwarted ambition made him cruel. Hanzo had been subjected to and made use of that cruelty by turns. Now, though, there is nothing to stop Kazuo.

Hanzo should have tried harder to kill him when he last had the chance.

“If the burdens of leadership troubled you so, you had the honorable way out. Instead you chose to tear everything down. Like a child, throwing a tantrum.”

“I don’t have to explain my actions to you.”

Kazuo sniffs dismissively. 

“No, of course Sojiro’s first born _runt_ needn’t deign to that. As if there was ever a thought in your princely head worth hearing. My brother should have let the spirits burn you out on assassinations like I suggested. That would have only left your brother, I suppose, but he was a problem that would have solved itself if anyone would have had the sense to leave him in the gutters where he belonged.”

“Don’t you dare speak of Genji!”

“I’ll speak of whomever I choose!” Kazuo shouts. “You denied me my chance, _my place_ at the head of the Shimada-gumi! _Speaking_ is the least of the ways I’ll repay you for that.”

Kazuo extends his hand, a manic smile curling the edges of his lips. One of his lackeys produces a knife. 

“This is how this is going to go, _Hanzo_. I’m going to dismember your precious foreigner, bit by bit. You are going to watch. Then I’ll do the same to you.”

“ _No!_ ” Hanzo lunges forward, but a half-dozen pistols are leveled at his chest. Hanzo stops, not out of concern for himself, but because if he knows if he’s dead Jesse will be alone with nothing but Kazuo’s meager mercy. 

“You’re a coward, Kazuo, killing a bound and beaten man. I took nothing from you, you were never worthy in the first place.”

Kazuo sweeps toward Hanzo, the knife extended like an accusing finger. 

“ _I_ am a coward? You had to be goaded and coddled into putting down your cur of a brother!”

“Because it was the wrong course of action.”

Kazuo scoffs. Then the cruel smile returns. 

“If you’re so _brave_ , you may kill your lover. Put him down, cleanly, if you wish.”

Hanzo’s mouth opens, but no words come. He is breathless as a decade of grief and regret crash down on him. Of all his sins, _that_ is one he cannot repeat. There has to be _something_ —

“No? Very well.”

Kazuo fists his hand in Jesse’s hair and presses the knife to the delicate skin under Jesse’s earlobe. A line of blood wells up along the blade, bright on the steel. Jesse snarls through the gag, writhing helplessly. Hanzo can only stare.

In the moment between one blink and the next, cold creeps down his spinal column, settling like frost in his thoracic nerves. Static unfurls under his skin from a core that sits like a neutron star under his diaphragm. He hears a song, a familiar wordless humming played on his bones.

Hanzo’s plea to his companions is voiceless—they sample his agony directly. Their response is a riot of light and movement in his vision, probability spun out like the most delicate glasswork. It’s chaos, except—

In the midst of a storm of vaguely human shapes, he sees himself take a sword. Sees himself drive it into Jesse. Sees Jesse fall.

But he also sees Jesse firing Peacekeeper. Sees Kazuo die. And further out, dim and blurry, shapes hovering over Jesse. Help? The green of Genji’s dragon. _Overwatch_.

Hanzo searches desperately, trying to find a different path —one where he doesn’t have to pick up that sword. He only sees death for them both, over and over. The only way out lies in that dolorous blow. He feels the sureness of his companions like an iron rod in his back, but to first hurt Jesse—

 _I can’t_ he wails.

 _You must_ is the reply.

The visions recede, leaving only a halo at the edge of his vision. Kazuo is still only a moment from removing Jesse’s ear from his head. Even if it ruins him, Hanzo cannot let that happen.

“Stop.” Kazuo does, arching one eyebrow at Hanzo. Jesse is breathing harsh and fast through his nose, staring right at Hanzo. He can’t meet Jesse’s eyes. “I’ll do it. Let me kill him.”

With the future burning in his mind like a brand, Hanzo straightens to his full height and fixes his gaze on Kazuo. He isn’t sure if Jesse was able to follow the conversation, or if it would be better or worse if he had. Kazuo faint surprise melts into a vicious kind of delight, and he pulls one of the swords from his belt. He hands it to one of his underlings who brings it over with obvious trepidation.

Hanzo recognizes it immediately. It’s his, after all.

Of this, Hanzo’s recollection is perfect—his brother’s blood spraying him cheek to knee in a fine mist. There are still flecks of blood dotting the silk handle wrapping, brown with age but no less damning. Hanzo’s hands shake as he draws the sword from its scabbard. Even ten years removed, it is still familiar in his hand, weighted perfectly for the butcher that mastered it.

His companions rise higher and the tremors stop with a jarring abruptness. With them so close to the surface, Hanzo can feel Kazuo’s dragon—it strikes him like hail, a stinging wall at the edge of his consciousness—but he puts it out of his mind.

“Let him stand,” Hanzo orders. If this goes wrong, Jesse deserves to have died on his feet. Kazuo’s men haul Jesse up. He sways, unsteady, but he doesn’t fall.

The next few seconds swim in his vision like afterimages. The sword slipping into Jesse’s middle just so, avoiding an immediately fatal blow while still severing the ropes binding his hands. If Hanzo can thread the needle, the rest of it may come to pass.

Hanzo still has to force himself to take every step across the room, every iota of his being hating that he cannot see a better way. Hating that he ever led Jesse here.

Hanzo stops once he is in striking distance and finally meets Jesse’s eyes. For a moment, his companions leave his vision clear, and he can see Jesse looking back at him, the gravity of his gaze stealing Hanzo’s breath.

Hanzo sees trust in those eyes. As if he deserves an ounce of it.

“ _Lo siento_ ,” Hanzo murmurs, hoping no else hears even knowing they won’t understand. He wonders if Jesse _knows._ Wonders if he even deserves Jesse’s understanding. His fingers tighten involuntarily around the sword, an outside influence keeping him from throwing it aside.

The arc of the strike blooms in his vision, the inevitability of it implacable.

Hanzo lunges.

As the sword slips into Jesse’s flesh, he makes small, choking sound, almost note for note the way Genji did. To have drawn such a loathsome noise twice in his life shatters any hope Hanzo had in redemption—he is beyond it now. There are only so many unforgivable things a soul can bear. Still, he owes it to Jesse to make his pain worth it, and so he is sure to drive the sword through until it cuts the rope around his left wrist.

He withdraws the sword, quick and damningly sure. Jesse tips forward, but before he can fall Hanzo wraps an arm around him in a parody of an embrace and helps him to the ground, near the corpse of the first man he killed. Jesse’s breathing is ragged and shallow, his eyes screwed shut. Hanzo leans over him, faking some tender gesture, and whispers,

“Get your gun.”

Then he gives himself over to his companions, to let come what may.

Both dragons explode into the universe with a roar that rattles all the windows, the plasmic miasma of their bodies expanding in the enclosed space. Several of Kazuo’s men fire, but the paths of the bullets are plain to the dragons, and with their sight he is able to deflect the only one that might have struck him.

To be nothing but the conduit for his companion’s fury is easier. They lay the path out before him, each strike perfectly placed, each step putting him just out of the way of a bullet or counterstrike. Hanzo doesn’t think at all as he carves his way back to his uncle.

Kazuo’s dragon is violet in its rage, burning them both. It roars through the ether, but it is only one and not so tuned to its host as Hanzo’s. Kazuo draws his sword, but Hanzo is on him before he completes the motion. It might not be honorable, but Hanzo is far beyond honor. The only thing that matters is recompense for Jesse’s hurt.

In the instants before Hanzo’s sword connects, there is terror in Kazuo’s face, but it is not satisfaction enough. His dragon wails, pinned by one of Hanzo’s, and Hanzo slices through his uncle, shoulder to pelvis, as the other dragon tears into him like an electric wildfire.

Kazuo’s corpse falls to the ground, and the wet thump of it is the last sound before an eerie silence falls. All Hanzo can hear is his own labored breathing, and as his companions’ hold of him fades the tremors return at full force. The violence of them sends the sword from his hand and drives him to his knees. The smell of burnt flesh and ozone is overwhelming, coating his tongue and sticking in the back of his throat.

Just like it was after Genji.

Hanzo scrambles away from the sword. How could he have touched it again? How could he still be this man, still be someone who could cut down someone he loves?

Jesse’s groan cuts through the silence. He’s still alive. He needs help. Unfitting as he is, Hanzo is the only one to help him, so he staggers to Jesse’s side.

Jesse has pulled gag free from his mouth, so Hanzo can see the sliver of a smile ghosting Jesse’s lips as he approaches. How can he do that? Smile at Hanzo, like he didn’t just run him through.

One of Jesse’s hands is pressed against the wound, but the other is curled around Peacekeeper. The sharp tang of gun smoke lingers in the air beside him. Gently, Hanzo moves the hand on his wound away. It’s a small thing, barely longer than his thumb, but it’s bleeding profusely. Hanzo presses down, trying to stem the bleeding.

“Hey, baby,” Jesse murmurs.

Hanzo’s throat closes, silencing any response he might have. Jesse sets Peacekeeper down and lays his hand on top of Hanzo’s.

“Hell of a plan. You reckon the cavalry’s comin’?”

Hanzo barely hears him, transfixed by the feeling of Jesse’s blood under his palms. It’s hot, and no matter how he bears down it keeps coming.

What if he had been wrong? Had he struck poorly, killed Jesse anyway? His imagination seizes on the thought, spins out grim fantasies. Jesse, growing paler and colder, until his heart gives out. Jesse, dying under his hands.

What has he done?

“Sweetheart?” Jesse sounds frightened. Of course he’s frightened, he’s bleeding out in some hellhole. What if the authorities find them? What if this is the future where Overwatch doesn’t come?

If Jesse dies here Hanzo doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“Jesse! _Hanzo_!”

Hanzo flinches at the sound of his name, unsure of who said it.

“Here!” Jesse yells.

There’s a flash of blue, then Lena appears a few meters away.

“Christ, Jesse’s down!”

She flickers closer and activates the biotic canister in her hands. She looks between them nervously, hands hovering above Jesse.

“Howdy,” Jesse says. “You missed the party, sorry about that.”

Lena looks around, frowning.

“You two really know how to step in it.”

Genji runs into the room next, though he pulls up short almost immediately. Another wave of shame sends a shudder through Hanzo. He must know what happened. How could he not recognize what Hanzo’s butchery?

Genji shakes his head, then calls,

“They’re here! This way.”

Then the rest of Overwatch spills through, at least two fireteams. Hanzo backs off when the medics swarm Jesse, stumbling until he’s well out of the way and then sinking back to the floor.

He looks down at his hands. They are stained red. Jesse’s blood is on his hands, just like Genji’s was. Someone shakes him, says something, but it is nothing but noise against Hanzo’s ears.

“ _Brother_.” Genji finally gets his attention by physically moving his head. “Are. You. Hurt?”

Hanzo blinks at him. Why would that matter? Bewildered, he shakes his head.

“Okay, then we have to go.”

When Hanzo doesn’t get to his feet, Genji pulls him up and drags him by the elbow. Hanzo lets himself be led, paying no attention to where.

If Hanzo is lucky, Genji will take him somewhere quiet and do what he should have done in Hanamura all those months ago. He stares at his brother’s weapons and imagines Genji spilling his knotted entrails, black with his misdeeds, into the open air. Imagines finally being unable to hurt those closest to him.

Genji drags him outside. There are two vans waiting, but only one with the doors open. Genji shoves him inside and climbs in behind him, shutting the doors.

Jesse is not there.

Hanzo’s only thought it that it seems right. He shouldn’t be allowed near Jesse. The van starts moving, and inertia makes him sway.

“ _Hanzo_.” Genji sounds exasperated. Has he been speaking? Hanzo glances up at him. “What happened back there?” Hanzo can only look down at his hands.

It should be answer enough.

* * *

The pounding on Hanzo’s door stopped halfway through the bottle of scotch Jesse brought back last month.

They’d only just started it, but now it’s empty. It was nice, but not improved by bringing it into the shower. Hanzo couldn’t delay either getting the blood off skin or blunting his thoughts.

Now it’s dark, and Hanzo is working his way through a bottle of sake he kept in the back of his closet. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Jesse for a moment, but now some of the thoughts aren’t of the way his blood felt coating his skin.

Jesse is probably out of surgery. He’s probably _been_ out of surgery. Was that what the pounding was about? No, surely not. No one would be eager to take him to the man he’d so grievously wounded. Still, Hanzo has to know. Has to see if he’s okay.

He takes the bottle of sake, because he’s scared of what he will find.

The medbay is abandoned. It must be later than he realized. Hanzo’s feet are loud, but he can’t find it in him to care. He almost hopes someone will hear him, tell him to leave. Someone should recognize he can’t be trusted.

No one stops him, though. He makes it to the room Jesse’s recovering in without encountering anyone.

Somehow, he isn’t prepared for what he sees.

The bottle slips from Hanzo’s numb fingers, landing with a hollow thump on the tile. He starts to lean down to retrieve it, but that sends the room careening on seemingly every axis. The door frame is the only point of stability, and he clings to it until the spinning stops, breathing raggedly through his teeth.

Never mind the bottle then. It was almost empty anyway.

Hanzo takes a few unsteady steps into the room, cutting a jagged path toward the bed. Toward Jesse. Jesse’s hand is resting on his stomach. Hanzo wants to take it, but he can’t bring himself to touch, not when the memory of Jesse’s blood is still too fresh even for liquor to wash it from his memory.

Blue moonlight from the window is the only illumination, dim and harsh. It’s still enough to see how sick Jesse looks, how ragged, how beaten. Hanzo’s never seen him look _fragile_ before. It makes his breath stick in his lungs.

He did this.

He struck the blow hidden under a mountain of gauze, but Hanzo’s as responsible for every other bruise as Kazuo. If it weren’t for Hanzo, Kazuo would never have even known Jesse existed. Even in ten years, he hasn’t been able to wipe his family’s empire from the earth, and so long as he lives they will hunt him for trying.

This will happen again, Hanzo realizes. Everyone he values is less safe for it, not just Jesse. What if the next time, it’s someone who doesn’t have Kazuo’s stupid cruelty? If it had been Hanzo, he would have killed Kazuo’s lover the moment they were no longer needed.

He realizes what he has to do.

Hanzo steps away from the bed, the weight of that realization steadying him against the alcohol. Jesse still hasn’t stirred. Hanzo fixes the sight of Jesse sleeping and vulnerable in his memory. He can’t forget what he has done.

With a shuddering breath, Hanzo leaves.

There is a path out of the Watchpoint from his barrack’s window that Athena can’t see, so long as one isn’t afraid to climb. Hanzo’s hands gather the most basic necessities into an old rucksack, acting on a decade of muscle memory forged by hasty escapes. If nothing else, he is adept at vanishing, though he’s only had to abandon a home once before.

He pauses when he gets to Stormbow. It would have been unthinkable to leave it behind even ten hours ago, but now? Being armed has always made it harder to travel, and what does he need it for? Chasing bounties was only ever a way to keep his skills sharp for the work that truly mattered—avenging his brother. But Genji isn’t in need of vengeance.

Hanzo sets the bow back and takes one last look around the room. The humble few square meters have born witness to many of the happiest moments of his adult life. He can only hope that they serve someone else so well.

The window opens silently to let him lean into the cold night. He swings out carefully, now hyper aware of how badly his faculties are diminished. The cold is at least bracing, making him feel a little more sober. The descent is slow, but only difficult because of how much he drank. He makes it to an overgrown access road well before dawn.

Far behind him, the Watchpoint is little more than a few points of light. He pauses on the road, feels the immensity of what he’s leaving, but he does not look back.

* * *

It occurs to Hanzo that he does not know what day it is. It’s not the most useful thought to be having at almost one in the morning, but here it is.

The days have run together into weeks, blurred by jetlag and liquor. At the moment, he can’t even remember if he’s just arrived in this city or if should be leaving.

He should, at the least, be leaving this bar. The bartender has started giving him looks, like she’s about to finally cut him off. He’s been sitting in the same spot since the afternoon, the first patron for the day and now the last for the night. He decides to save them both the trouble and pushes himself up, leaving a wad of cash on the bar.

Hanzo staggers outside, and it’s then he realizes he doesn’t know where he is. Not the area, not the city, he’s not even sure which country. He fumbles through his pockets and comes up with two different hostel keycards, one Mandarin and the other Vietnamese. The flyer on a nearby lamppost is in neither language.

It won’t matter when direction he walks, then.

He knows he should try to get his bearings, or at least find a place to sleep, but instead he wanders aimlessly. Where ever this is, it’s quiet. Hardly anyone else is out. A part of him, hard to drown, feels unsettled. A crowd would be easier to disappear into, but there is nothing for it.

He only pauses when a man catches his eye.

He isn’t the first. No, in the weeks Hanzo’s been on the move, many men have reminded him of Jesse in one way or another. This one’s hair is a shade too dark, his skin just a bit too light, but there’s something in his posture that’s familiar enough to make Hanzo’s eyes linger.

The man is smoking—cigarettes not cigars, Hanzo notes with disdain—at the mouth of an alley, just past the door of a bar with less strict hours than the one Hanzo left. He isn’t alone, either. Two others are smoking with him. Their conversation dies as, one by one, they notice Hanzo.

“What are you looking at?” the man asks. His accent is all wrong, and that makes Hanzo’s lips curl into a sneer.

“Someone foolish.”

It’s not smart. Hanzo can tell by the way he carries himself that the man is no stranger to violence. But it also feels right, feels _just_ to stir up the ire of any echo of Jesse. To make someone hate him. It’s no less than he deserves.

Hanzo can’t think of Jesse without remembering what he did to him. Without remembering what he is doomed to do to the people closest to him. No amount of alcohol has been able to quiet those memories.

Goading this man won’t help either, but Hanzo still craves the fight.

The man tosses aside the cigarette and stalks towards Hanzo. Hubris—or maybe just inebriation—gives Hanzo the bravado to spread his arms wide, leaving his body open. What does it matter, truly, if he lets the first blow go for free?

The man’s fist catches him below the ribs. It knocks the wind out of his lungs, and Hanzo staggers back. The pain is muted, but his arms still drop to cling to his side.

That opens him up for a blow the head.

He spins to the ground. A kick comes before he can get his bearings. Some part of him seethes at being so easily downed, but the rest relishes the pain. It is the first thing to distract him from his self-loathing in days.

There is shouting above him. For a moment Hanzo wonders if the man’s friends have pulled him away, but the sound of a body hitting the pavement spells a definitive no. Hanzo squints up, trying to see what’s going on. He only sees a shadowy blur, backlit by the streetlights.

The shadow passes over him, blotting out what little light there is. Hanzo blinks up at it, unable to resolve it into anything familiar. They’re hovering over him, nothing but a hulking swatch of night. One hand reaches toward him, but Hanzo swats it away.

“Fuck _off_ ,” he slurs.

“No, darlin’, I don’t think I will.”

* * *

The urgent need to empty his stomach wakes Hanzo. He rolls, pawing blindly at the floor beside the bed, and his hand bumps a small trash can almost immediately. He lifts it to his face just as the nausea wins, and he retches up bile and cheap liquor.

Someone runs a heavy, warm hand up and down his back as he dry heaves on the last of the previous night’s mistakes. There’s a tiny part of him that knows that something is wrong; he’s supposed to be alone. The rest of him is too miserable to shy away from even this meager comfort. He drops the full and foul smelling trash can back to the floor and catches his breath, eyes screwed shut against the too bright morning light.

“Think you can drink somethin’?”

That low voice, that familiar drawl, cuts through the fog of the hangover. It can’t be. He can’t be here. Hanzo spins in place, but the evidence to the contrary is sitting beside him holding a bottle of pastel sports drink.

A lump forms in Hanzo’s throat. The image of Jesse bleeding under his hands had tarnished all his better memories. In person, he looks almost unreal—hale, hearty, _whole_. Hanzo shudders under the weight of his shame and his affection.

While Jesse might look well again, he doesn’t look _happy_. There’s a grim set to his lips Hanzo doesn’t recognize, something flinty in his eyes. He twists the cap on the drink until it snaps, the sound thunderous in their silence. Hanzo takes it when he offers, sips the tepid liquid inside. It tastes vile mixed with the acid lingering in his throat, but he swallows it anyway.

Hanzo finally thinks to check his surroundings—a nondescript hotel room, almost painfully bland but clean. Certainly no place he would have bothered with for himself. His rucksack is sitting next to Jesse’s duffle on the cheap table. The curtains are pulled closed, but it’s not enough to dim the daylight. 

“How did you find me?” Hanzo asks, unable to meet Jesse’s eyes.

“You popped on face recog in Ankara. After that, wasn’t much doin’ to see you were headin’ east.” Jesse pauses, chews his lip in that way he does when he needs a smoke and can’t have one. “You weren’t coverin’ your tracks none. Anyone coulda followed if they put their mind to it.”

Hanzo shrugs. Jesse blows a loud sigh, rubs his temples. A few more sips of the drink delay him having to say anything. He should be thinking of something to say. 

But where would he even start?

Why is Jesse even here? 

“You left.” Jesse’s tone demands Hanzo’s attention. He looks, he can’t help it, the raw notes make him. He sees that Jesse’s eyes are shining and his teeth are bared. The two words are an accusation, a _condemnation_ , but not the one Hanzo expected. “You left me without sayin’ a word.” Jesse stops to swallow something down. As if, even now, there are things he wants to spare Hanzo. “If you’re done with me, I want you to look me in the eyes and say it.”

Hanzo opens his mouth, but words escape him. A part of him wants to tell Jesse exactly that, to drive him away, because it’s no better than he deserves; another part hears the _ache_ in Jesse’s voice and can’t bear to let it go unsoothed.

Hanzo shakes his head.

“I could never be done with you.”

“Then why’d you leave?”

“I _hurt_ you!” Hanzo bites out. Saying it, he also realizes he hadn’t so much as apologized. “I am sorry.”

“If you’re gonna be sorry for somethin’, be sorry for runnin’ off in the dead of night. Christ, Hanzo, when I woke up everyone thought you might be _dead_.”

Those last words leave his lips with such genuine fear Hanzo can’t help but shudder. He hadn’t thought about how it would look if he left, he was so concerned with not being followed. Not only had he failed at that, but he’d wounded Jesse all over again.

“Stop that,” Jesse says. “I know what you’re thinkin’, and you gotta _fuckin’ stop_.” In one smooth motion, Jesse reaches out and pulls Hanzo against his chest. Hanzo sags into him, too tired and sick and ragged to pull away. “I heard every word he said,” Jesse whispers. “I know what he wanted to make you do. Don’t let him win, baby.”

“You could have _died_ ,” Hanzo hisses, the words flaying his throat as he speaks them. “I could have killed you. Just like—like—”

Jesse squeezes tighter.

“You didn’t.”

Hanzo doesn’t have anything to say to that, so lets Jesse hold him and pretends that he’s the one holding Jesse together. 

“I got us a ride lined up while you were sleeping,” Jesse says eventually. “You wanna get cleaned up before we go?”

Hanzo would rather try to sleep off the hangover, but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he pushes himself out of the bed, achy and slow. The ensuite bathroom is no more remarkable than the rest of the room, but it will serve its purpose. Hanzo starts the shower and waits for the water to warm.

Clothes—his clothes, Hanzo realizes—are already sitting on the vanity, rolled neatly in the way Jesse favors. Jesse brought his clothes, all the way from the Watchpoint. Hanzo can’t name what that makes him feel.

* * *

Jesse barely lets him out of arm’s reach as they walk to the car. He’s carrying both their bags. It’s surely partly some gentlemanly impulse, but perhaps he still fears Hanzo bolting and hopes having the rucksack will be some meager insurance against that. 

Hanzo’s head is still pounding, and walking is proving taxing, nevermind running. Besides, he has no intention of going anywhere Jesse does not lead. Not right now. Maybe not for a while. The car is blessedly dim, and once Jesse shuts his door, Hanzo reclines the seat and throws his arm over his eyes. 

The motion of the vehicle is soothing, the fan Jesse turns on moreso. He lies there and breathes carefully though his mouth and listens to the small, idle noises Jesse makes. 

It is easy to lose track of time. The car’s slow stop takes him by surprise. He rubs his face and looks out the window. They are in the middle of a fallow field, the Orca parked nearby with the ramp down. 

“Up and at ‘em.” Jesse murmurs. Hanzo heaves the door open and swings himself out of the car. 

He turns back to watch Jesse, and he misses someone exit the Orca because of it. 

“ _You!_ ” 

Hanzo spins on his heel, raising his fists, but he’s too slow. Genji bats his hands away and fists his own in Hanzo’s shirt, then shakes him so hard he nearly loses his balance. 

“You stupid asshole!” Genji shouts louder than Hanzo has ever heard him without his respirator. He starts coughing immediately, making an awful wheezing sound because of his diminished lung capacity, and lets Hanzo’s shirt go to cover his mouth. The impulse to help lifts Hanzo’s hands, but he can’t make himself touch his brother. He is, after all, the ultimate reason for Genji’s coughing.

Genji waves him off anyway, gathering himself after only a few moments. He stares at Hanzo with a curious glassy look, his lips twitching like there is something literally trying to slip out from behind his teeth. Finally, he pronounces,

“I’m going to kick your ass.”

Then Genji hugs him tight enough to make his ribs ache. Hanzo’s breathe catches in his chest in a way that has nothing to do with his brother’s vice grip, but Genji lets him go.

“You look _awful_. What have you been doing? Wait, no, don’t tell me.”

“Oi! You find the bastard?” Lena calls from inside, appearing at the top of the ramp in a blue flash. 

“Got him!” Jesse calls back.

Lena stops down the ramp, her footfalls near thunderous, and she marches right up to Hanzo. Her glare is surprisingly potent. 

“We were worried sick!” she snaps, punctuating each word by poking a thin finger into his chest. “What is _wrong_ with you, running off like that?”

“I am sorry, Lena. Genji. It was a lapse in judgment.”

“Oh, is that all?”

Jesse drapes his arm across Hanzo’s shoulders, bustressing him against the pilot’s righteous anger. 

“I’ve got the car headed back. How bout we get in the air?”

“All right, all right. Don’t think you’re off the hook, mister!”

Lena’s bluster proves short lived, however. Once the autopilot is engaged, she turns to making tea. She calls him a bastard again, hands him a cup, and seems to consider the matter settled. It’s her kind of tea, not Hanzo’s, but he appreciates it anyway. 

Genji doesn’t stop staring at him, but he doesn’t seem to have anything else he wants to say for the moment. Hanzo know he hasn’t heard the last word from his brother, though. 

Jesse sits beside him, solid and warm, with a practiced kind of ease that bears little resemblance to the real thing. 

* * *

_Blood, hot, stinging, stinking, coating his face and hands_ —

 _Baby, please, don’t do it, sweetheart_ —

 _This was the only way_ —

 _The death rattle, soft and damning, bloody foam bubbling between blue lips_ —

_He always ends up here._

Hanzo wakes with a shout. 

He gasps, but there is no air in the room. His hands fly out, fumbling for a light switch, but they bump something warm instead. He recoils, tries to scramble away. Where is he? Who is there?

“Hanzo!”

The light comes on suddenly, the pale yellow throwing up looming shadows. It takes Hanzo far too long to realize that Jesse is here with him. Far too long to remember that Jesse came for him, brought him back to the Watchpoint. 

“Oh, sweetness, come here.”

Hanzo shakes his head. He rubs his hands on the sheets—the memory of blood on his hands is still too vivid to touch Jesse. Jesse sighs and scoots closer.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so,” Jesse mutters.

Hanzo’s eyes fall, but catch on the new scar on Jesse’s abdomen. It’s still a livid red. Not enough time has passed to dull it. 

Hanzo put that scar there. With a sword he swore never to touch again. A noise he doesn’t mean to make escapes his throat.

Jesse follows his line of sight, and, realizing what Hanzo is looking at, covers the scar with one hand and tips Hanzo’s chin up with the other. His eyes are as intense as Hanzo’s ever seen them, captivating in the paltry light. 

“That’s not important.”

“How can you—”

Jesse presses a finger against Hanzo’s lips, then picks up one of Hanzo’s hands and presses it against his own chest. Under Hanzo’s fingers, he can feel the beating of Jesse’s heart.

“This is what matters. I’m alive. You’re alive. That’s what you did, honey. I need you to understand that.”

Sitting there, in the dark, even with the memory of the nightmare close, Hanzo starts to.


End file.
